


Gorgeous

by hyuniebaby



Category: Naruto
Genre: Based on a Taylor Swift Song, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Shenanigans, F/M, Fluff, Hate to Love, Love/Hate, Song: Gorgeous (Taylor Swift), Songfic, i don't know what to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 01:29:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29217243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyuniebaby/pseuds/hyuniebaby
Summary: You hate Neji... or do you?
Relationships: Hyuuga Neji/Reader
Kudos: 13





	Gorgeous

You always thought the gods above adore you because of how lucky you are. For years of being a shinobi, you’re able to go on missions without  _ that _ certain someone.

Everyone knows that you dislike Neji. Some might even go far and say you hate him. But no one really knew why you hated him with so much passion.

So when you’ve been assigned on a mission with him for the first time, your friends  — with the exception of Hinata — immediately know you’d invite them for drinks to get piss drunk and rant about the Hyuga boy. 

When you arrive at the bar, you wasted no time ordering drinks and downing them one by one.

“Woah, slow down Y/N!” Sakura says.

“Let her be, Sakura. You know how she gets when Neji is involved,” Ino tells Sakura, “No words are going to stop her, might as well just look over her.”

Sakura gives her a frown then slips in glasses of water in between the drinks you had lined up.

“Ugh, I hate this! Why do I even have to be assigned with him?” You complain.

Ino sighs, “It was bound to happen anyway, with the shortage of shinobis from the back-to-back attacks here in Konoha, and all that. You’ve been lucky you hadn’t been assigned on missions with him for this long.”

You huff. “The gods hate me so much.”

Ino just rolls her eyes at you.

“Why do you hate Neji so much anyway?” Sakura asks.

You take a shot before answering. “Have you heard how he talks? He’s always talking about destinies and fates and how we can’t change them!”

Sakura and Ino look at each other. Then Sakura says, “I don’t know what year you live in, but Neji has changed ever since he met Naruto.”

“—And besides that,” you continue your rant, “He’s such a know-it-all. And he just  _ always _ has to explain everything to us like we don’t understand anything.”

“I mean he’s really good at analyzing things and breaking them down for us so we can follow the reasoning behind things,” Sakura says in defense of the poor man.

“Shikamaru is just the same but I don’t see you hating on him,” Ino adds.

You pay no mind to their statements, knowing they’re probably right but you weren’t just going to admit that. “—And he always sounds so bossy! Everyone looks up to him and heeds his words. It’s like he has this magnetic field that attracts people and shit. It’s so fucking annoying!”

Ino and Sakura were both about to say something about your statements but no words came out despite them opening their mouths. You squint at them, a contrast to the way their eyes had widened.

“What?” You ask.

“I think we should talk, you’re being a little too loud,” someone behind you says.

You bite the inside of your cheeks, knowing who that voice belongs to. You feel your face getting hot  — from the embarrassment or from the alcohol, you weren’t sure. You clear your throat, look behind you and greet, “Neji.” You try to make your voice sound friendly, but you were so used to saying his name laced with venom that it’s just impossible for you to sound amicable.

He’s taken aback by the hostility in your voice. He’s aware of your hatred towards him so he tries not to bother you with his presence but you’re talking too loudly about him that it was becoming uncomfortable to him. Besides, you two are going to go on a mission together, it’s better to resolve things between the two of you right now, or at least before the mission starts.

Neji knows he hasn’t done anything to wrong you and as far as he’s concerned, both of you never talked to each other yet so he wasn’t really sure why you despised him so much, until now, that is.

He holds his hand out for you to help you stand.  _ How gentlemanly _ , you wanted to sneer but you stopped yourself. Instead, you clench your fists and glare at him. 

When you don’t make a move to stand up, he gently grabs a hold of your hand and tugs you towards the exit of the bar. You’re too shocked by the action that you didn’t get to protest. You know damn well Neji avoids physical contact with everyone, except during training, of course.

By the time you’re both out of the bar, you aim a punch at him. But with your drunkenness, you miss. That, and he easily dodged it.

“What are you doing?!” Neji asks, surprised by your action.

“You should think about the consequence of touching my hand.”

His brows furrow, trying to understand you. He doesn’t want to make things worse so he chooses to apologize instead.

You don’t respond, opting to lean back against the wall and cross your arms instead, considering your abrupt movement made your head feel dizzy. You tried not to wince at the pounding of your head. God forbid you’d let him see any weakness in you.

Then you take a look at Neji who seems to have shifted to a more relaxed stance after your unexpected attack. Seeing this, you try to collect yourself as well. Or at least as much as your drunk mind can.

Neji takes your silence as a signal to talk. “We’ve known each other for so long now because we have the same circle of friends, but we never really got to talk to each other until now,” he starts. “I have seen you interact with everyone except me. At first it did not really bother me, but then I found out you hated me. In order to avoid unnecessary arguments or whatsoever, I let you be and kept my distance. I did not understand why, until I heard you talking a while ago—”

There was something unnerving about his lavender eyes staring at you so intently that must’ve made your mind short circuit, so you cut him off and blurt out, “You should take that as a compliment.”

To say that Neji is confused is an understatement. The creases on his forehead deepen at your declaration. “What do you mean?”

You close your eyes and just shrug. Your mind wasn’t cooperating with you so you’d rather just not talk. You keep silent for a whole minute meanwhile Neji waits until you speak again. When the minute passes and he still hasn’t said a word, you ask, “Why don’t you just go back to Tenten or something?”

_ That sounded wrong _ .

Frankly, that wasn’t what you plan on saying, but your inebriated mind couldn’t comprehend what you just said and its possible implication.

If other people were to listen to your conversation right now, they would probably assume that you were jealous, or maybe even insecure with Tenten, but Neji was different from other people. Luckily for you, you both share a similar way of thinking. He  _ knows _ you’re trying to deflect.

“Tenten’s your girlfriend, right?” You couldn’t stop your mouth from blabbering anymore.

“No. She’s a friend.”

This was news to you. You always assumed they were together since they spend a huge amount of time with each other.

“So you’re single?”

“Yes.”

“ _ Ugh, that’s honestly worse _ ,” you thought. Or at least you intended it to be just a thought but you ended up saying it out loud.

Neji doesn’t know if he should be offended by your statement or not.  _ Was it worse because no one’s going to keep him in line? Shouldn’t you be glad no one’s going to suffer the fate of being his girlfriend? _ Those were definitely something you’d say. But he’s uncertain, so he pushed those thoughts aside, knowing full well you weren’t going to answer him properly if he asked the meaning behind your words.

Since you’re so keen on changing the subject regarding your hatred for him when he’s obviously trying hard to make amends with you, he decides to just drop it and talk to you when you’re completely sober. “Is Kiba going to come get you?”

“Why should he?” It was your turn to furrow your brows.

“You’re drunk and he’s your boyfriend.”

You snort. If he said you were  _ seeing _ Kiba then you definitely wouldn’t deny it and you’d shut your mouth. You aren’t in a relationship with him, or maybe you are, if friends-with-benefits is considered a relationship. So Kiba is in no way your boyfriend — that label entails commitment and of course, love. However, your setup with Kiba was more of an agreement rather than a commitment and instead of romantic love, there was only love for a friend.

To correct him you say, “He’s not really my boyfriend.”

Neji was never one to assume unless there’s a basis. He knows this about himself. So when you deny your relationship with Kiba, he was skeptical, and a smaller part of him was ashamed that he reached such a conclusion without asking first.

It only goes to show that you both have wrong preconceptions about each other, and that you both have a lot to learn about one another.

“Ah, sorry. I thought—”

“It’s fine,” you wave him off.

Neji’s eye twitches. You cut him off twice now and he doesn’t appreciate it at all. He’s a very patient man and it takes a lot to get a rise out of him or maybe even get a reaction. But you had him shift from being apologetic to confused to ashamed and then to being annoyed in a matter of minutes.

Surely this wasn’t normal, right? What kind of power do you hold that you could make him easily shift moods? For a moment, he considers the possibility of you casting a genjutsu on him but quickly dismisses the thought when he senses that your chakra flow is normal.

You quickly notice his annoyance and you immediately feel bad for your actions. “‘M sorry,” you mumble with a pout, looking down on your feet.

The apology softens the Hyuga boy immediately. He’s never really heard you address him so sincerely and without malice all throughout this conversation, or ever. But he’s seen you do this with your other friends; he’s seen you readily set aside your pride for them. Your friends admittedly claimed that this was one of your traits that makes you so special whenever they tried coaxing him to talk to you and befriend you.

Unexpectedly, Neji smiles. It was truly a rare sight, and it was directed to you. You feel your heart flutter.

“I-I should, uhm, head home,” you internally cringe at the way you stuttered the words.

“What about Ino and Sakura?”

“Ah, I’m pretty sure they’ve gone ahead when I left.”

“And Kiba won’t pick you up?”

“Nope. He’s somewhere doing god knows what.”

Neji gives a contemplative stare.

“Anyway, I think you already know that we won’t be able to talk properly since I’m drunk, so I’ll go now. Let’s talk some other time, I guess. Bye!” You say a little too fast.

“Wait! Let me walk you home.”

You huff. “Do whatever you want.”

Silence follows after that. You’re particularly happy that the walk to your home is quick since you aren’t sure how to act around Neji.

He walks you until the door and you quickly mumble a thanks and shut the door.

As soon as the door is shut, you immediately slump to the floor, dropping your facade along the way.

The fact of the matter is that you don’t hate Neji. It’s quite the opposite actually. You just don’t know how to express your feelings properly.

For a moment you wish you could be like Hinata who’s content at watching Naruto from the sidelines. You, however, instead of feeling content, you’re furious.  _ Because there’s nothing you hate more than what you can’t have _ . And this is what your face chooses to express whenever Neji is around, which is why you couldn’t blame your friends  ~~ or other people for that matter ~~ when they assumed you hated him. You just went along with them, to save face.

The white lie was furthered by their observation that you don’t talk to him. To your defense, it’s not that you don’t want to talk to him, it’s just that you  _ can’t _ . Your mind literally goes haywire.

Just like in your conversation earlier. When you first cut him off, and blurted out the first thing on your mind.

_ You should take that as a compliment _ .

What your mind wanted to say is:  _ You should take that as a compliment because even when I’m drunk, it’s you I keep on thinking about _ .

Not to mention how embarrassing it was when you asked if he’s single and thought that that was so much worse than being in a relationship.  _ Because how can he be allowed to be single when he’s just so gorgeous it actually hurts _ ?

You bang your head against the door a couple of times in frustration.

Unbeknownst to you, Neji is still standing on the other side of the door, dumbfounded by how fast you shut it in front of his face. Just as he’s about to walk away, he hears a whack on the door. His mind immediately assumes you got hurt. As he raises his hand to knock on your door, he stills at the sound of your voice.

“ _ Stupid Neji and his stupidly gorgeous face, ruining my life by not being mine. _ ”

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't know what came over me when I wrote this 😅
> 
> (This isn't proofread as usual so I'm sorry if there's any mistake.)
> 
> Please let me know your thoughts~


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